Should we drink cold beverages in the cold?

Let’s rewind to a few weeks ago, when we had that wonderful cold blizzard that forced Boston University to reward our hard work this semester with a snow day. If you’re like me, then you probably accomplished absolutely nothing that day besides a load or two of laundry and binge-watching an entire season of your current show on Netflix. Then a few days later, it was the weekend and you realized that you procrastinated so successfully that you actually have a million and one things due on Monday.

That’s where my story begins. I was with my friend, studying for an astronomy midterm on the top floor of StuVi II, when two girls walked in carrying venti iced coffees from Starbucks. There was a foot-and-a-half of snow outside and light snowflakes flurried hurriedly in the air. When you walked, they smacked you in the face and stung your cheeks with cold. And here these ladies were, drinking iced coffee in the very same sub-freezing temperature.

I was impressed and that was when my friend first told me about the theory that drinking cold beverages in the cold is supposed to make you less cold because they help to establish some kind of equilibrium in your body. I didn’t buy it, but out of sheer curiosity, I decided to test it out.

Maybe there is something to drinking large cold beverages during the Boston winter. PHOTO VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The next week was the BU vs. Harvard University Beanpot Tournament game, and I was freezing. Yet what else did my friends and I buy but some of the fabulous gelato from one of the concession stands? While I know that ice cream doesn’t classify as a cold drink, it’s still a cold type of food and should have functioned as such. But, instead of feeling warmer (or at least more balanced), I just felt colder and was shivering uncontrollably for the rest of the game. Hooray.

So then I tested the actual cold beverage theory instead and bought myself an iced coffee and attempted to drink that while walking down Commonwealth Ave. back to the wind tunnel that is West Campus. The drink numbed my fingers through my gloves and chilled me to the core. The only benefit of that test was that I appreciated the warmth of my ninth-floor sauna (I mean, dorm room), that much more.

Ultimately, I’ve come to the conclusion that the theory of eating or drinking something cold can help you feel balanced in cold temperatures is actually just fake news. It did nothing to soothe my shivering and in fact just made me feel colder than I already was. Moral of the story: if you ever catch someone walking down Commonwealth Ave. drinking a venti iced caramel macchiato in sub-freezing temperature, just know that they’re crazy.